Another week begins!
Last week was good and full. Seems to be a trend these days.
What were the highlights?
Monday I had another standardized patient interview where the focus was on practicing gathering information related to the History of the Present Illness and the Past Medical History. I had 7 minutes to conduct the interview and the whole thing went by in a blink! Afterwards I received some wonderful feedback from the patient. He told me that he felt that I easily connected with him and he appreciated greatly how empathic I was. He said that I had a lot of "keepers" and gave me the thumbs up. As my triad stood up to migrate to the next station, I thanked him and he said, "No, thank you!" He proceeded to give me another thumbs up with an accompanying statement of "Really!" under his breath.
That whole experience was wonderful. Not only did I get some really energizing feedback, I also learned a lot. Those sessions can be very overwhelming. Everyone is in performance mode, the setting is very artificial, and we all are desperately trying to remember what we should ask and in what order that sometimes it is hard to actively listen. With practice, I am sure that the whole interview will feel more natural.
Monday evening, I tutored, biked home late, and then worked on more homework.
Tuesday - nothing too exciting happened. Wednesday, I had my Pediatric Physical Findings class which, as always, was quite moving and inspiring. We saw four patients - one baby with an unusual sinus tract beneath the bridge of his nose that had become infected and needed to be drained and then surgically repaired; two siblings with Cystic Fibrosis; and a boy with a recent diagnosis of medulloblastoma (brain tumor). The range of case severity was quite extreme and my rounding group of students met with the young boy last and were privileged enough to hear a very moving description of the journey the boy had gone through in the past few months, as related by his dutiful and loyal father. The boy was obviously depressed, but the pediatric resident who was rounding with us gave him a certificate for letting the students come and see him and he lit up! We saw his smile for the first time and the whole room seemed to brighten a bit. Such a hard situation to be in! His prognosis is uncertain, but it was a bit heartbreaking to feel just a little of the anguish and confusion experienced by that family. The boy had been healthy and vibrant not long before.
From a heavy and meaningful morning, I proceeded to spend my afternoon interviewing another round of medical school applicants. This time I was paired with another rater (a fellow first-year) and we were assigned to the 'group room.' To execute that rater assignment, I was supposed to rate the candidate giving instructions, while my classmate Rachel rated the candidate receiving instructions. Both candidates entered together, and their assignment was to try and communicate as necessary such that the picture in front of the 'receiver' matched the picture in front of the 'giver.' The pictures they had were comprised of simple shapes, but the giver's paper had more detail, so they had 5 minutes to assess what the differences were, the giver had to describe what to draw, and then at the end of that time period they had 3 minutes to debrief and give each other feedback on how the communication went. Participating in this component of the MMI was really interesting. It is amazing how task oriented people could get, where they thought the goal was to get through the whole picture as fast as possible and with the most accuracy, rather than trying to practice good communication techniques. A few people seemed to really understand the point of the exercise, but most let their perfectionist sides come out and then that 'station' in the MMI became a bit more stressful for them.
Thursday was just another day in terms of classes, but in the evening a group of my new girlfriends (Nicole, Jessie, Lindsey, and I) gathered together for fruit, sweets, and wine and took advantage of a rare moment just to unwind, catch up, and connect. It was wonderful and a rare treat in an otherwise very busy week.
Friday was also just another day. After class, several of us went to the nearby Stanford Shopping Center (aka the mall) to look for dresses and other accessories for our medical school formal event which happened on Saturday night. I found myself a nice black dress and some classy bling (earrings) and then Alex and I headed home for the night.
This weekend was a big tutoring weekend for me. I tutored two hours on Saturday, three hours on Sunday, squeezed studying in on either side of the tutoring commitments, but still had a splendid weekend diversion. On Saturday evening, Alex and I met up with 8 of my classmates and a few significant others for a big group dinner at Buca di Beppo (so much pasta!) and then headed to school to board the big charter buses that were taking everyone from Stanford to the San Jose Museum of Art. Moonlighting - the official name of the event (I preferred med school prom) - consisted of 300+ medical students and their significant others browsing the galleries, sipping on wine, beer, or a nice cocktail, eating chocolate fondue, chatting with each other, and dancing! The party started at 9 and went all the way until 2am, although Alex and I caught the earlier bus back (we left at 12:30 instead).
The whole evening was great! Such good, good people and the event was a huge success. So many of my classmates came, as well as a great representation of the upperclassmen. Alex seemed to really enjoy himself - one of my classmates remarked that she felt like Alex was another first-year. He seems to know a lot of people and he has also left most people with a great impression. Aw, shucks, so proud!
Yesterday (Sunday), aside from tutoring and studying, Alex and I managed to concoct some scrumptious things both for breakfast and dinner. Alex made me whole-wheat flaxseed banana pancakes for breakfast and we had butternut squash fries, baked cabbage with mozzarella, and turkey burgers for dinner. Delish!
The weather seems to holding up its end of the bargain for now. Lots of pretty warm, sunny days and the whole week is supposed to maintain that pattern. I don't have many notable things on this week's horizon, although I do have another Healer's Art class on Wednesday evening, so I will probably have lots to say about that in my next blog entry. The academic agenda this week consists of learning about implantation (in Developmental Biology), metabolic disorders with metabolic origin (Genetics), fat metabolism (Biochemistry), the ethics of confidentiality (ethics component of the Practice of Medicine course), the anatomy of the abdomen, and we will continue to breakdown the medical interview even further.
My life has acquired (and maintained) some rhythm and routine now and that is a welcome shift. One month from now I will be back in the PNW for Thanksgiving. Time is flying! I am enjoying it - the people, the academics, and the opportunities before me!
Ever onward!
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